Pages

Monday, March 23, 2015

Origami Artwork With Kids

Ever have just a crazy, crazy, week? I'm sure you have... and last week was mine. Chuck was sick the entire week and hubby had to work late hours. So at night I found myself trying to relax by catching up on my favorite shows (currently Brooklyn 99) and folding origami. Yup. I'll hopefully have some cool origami projects (like these origami black cat, origami jack-o-lantern, and origami vampire lips) to show you in the next couple of weeks.

I'm not an origami ninja. A lot of times projects just don't turn out quite how I imagined. Lines aren't folded correctly and have to be refolded (again and again). When imperfect projects are finally finished, it always seems like a shame to toss out the paper. So I thought to myself, "Why not turn my old origami projects into art?" And that's how this idea was born!

1. Randomly fold paper to create designs.

Geometric art is so big now. Origami is cool because when it's unfolded, your paper reveals all the steps that you made along the way! So why not just have fun randomly folding your paper and see what folded designs you can come up with?

Try folding all the folds towards the center of your paper. Or, try folding towards the outside! To make the design above, I kept folding and re-opening my sheet of paper over and over again. Once I was pleased with my design, I grabbed my crayons and just had a blast coloring everything in. Adding Sharpie lines gave the project an added dimension.

2. Use paper folded from an old project.

If you have old origami projects that you completed but don't want to keep, open the origami up to reveal a beautiful design. These two designs were created after folding an elephant and a jet plane.

I colored them in using the same process above.

(Ooh. I just realized something- you could probably do some really cool zentangles
with these designs too!)

I hope you have fun trying these projects out! And if you liked this idea, definitely check out my Arts and Crafts page for 100+ ideas or my friend Tiny Rotten Peanuts' Easy and Fun Zentangle activity. (She even offers a free printable zentangle sheet!)

Let's keep in Contact!

You can always find fun ideas on my Pinterest,Facebook,Instagram, or Twitteraccounts! (Or subscribe to my email mailing list by filling out the pink bar at the top of your screen.)